Page 25 of Guitars and Mistakes
But that was because he’d never heard me fighting for someone I cared about.
“What do you mean?”
I narrowed my eyes and shoved him a bit. “You know exactly what I mean. What’s going on with Rivers? Why was he all smirks and flirting last week and now suddenly he’s in full on heartbreak mode? What happened to him? And what does it have to do with Missouri?”
His own eyes narrowed then and I knew I had his attention.
“He told you about Missouri?”
“He told me his mood had something to do with Missouri. And something that reminded him that he wasn’t worth anyone’s time. He made it sound like this was the worst place on Earth. I want to know what’s going on.”
“Why do you care?”
I got as close to him as I could and stared up into his eyes. “Because I care abouthim. I want to know how to fix whatever’s wrong.”
It was a bold, very blunt statement, and the moment I made it I wondered if it was the wrong thing to say. I’d only known Rivers for a couple weeks and he’d spent a lot of that time pushing me away or proving that he didn’t think he deserved to have people who cared about him. He’d spent even more time pretending that he didn’t like me as much as I liked him. Pulling me close and then throwing me out.
Wanting me and then pushing me away again.
And I didn’t care. I mean, I did. I cared a lot. I felt like my heart had been through a freaking war since I met Rivers. But that didn’t mean I was ready to stop fighting for him. I’d seen something deep and wounded inside those eyes and I’d never been able to turn away from a wounded animal. I wanted to know what—or who—had hurt him so badly, and I wanted to know whether I could pull him back up again.
And no, it didn’t have anything to do with the contract Taylor was holding over my head or the fake relationship. The publicity or the idea that I might have a career on the horizon. It didn’t have a single thing to do with any of that.
It was only about Rivers. It was about the glimpses I’d seen of who I thought he might actually be, and the idea that I might be the only one who could see that.
Rivers Shine deserved to be saved. Even if I had to tie him up and force him to let me do it.
But first, I needed to know what I was saving him from.
“Matt,” I said, my voice full of warning. “Don’t make me get mean.”
He smirked at that, at least partially calling my bluff, and shook his head. “I don’t think you have it in you, Lila, but I don’t want to push you. I’ve seen the way you look at him. Yes, it’s about Missouri. Yes, it’s about what happened to him there. And he’d kill me if he knew I was about to tell you what I’m about to tell you.”
“I won’t tell him if you don’t. Now talk.”
And he did. He started with how he, Rivers, Noah, and Hudson knew each other. They’d all been in the same orphanage as kids, though each of them had landed there in a different way. Matt’s parents were killed in a car crash and he hadn’t had any other family to take him. Hudson’s mother had also died. Noah had been taken away from his mother, who was a drug addict.
Rivers’ mother had taken him to the orphanage and turned him over. Deserted him with only the clothes he was wearing and pair of shoes that were three sizes too small for him. He was dirty and underfed and had burns on his arms that made it into his permanent records as signs of abuse.
Matt and Rivers had been younger than Noah and Hudson, who had taken the boys under their wings and sought to protect them. But the kids had been cycled through foster families throughout their time in the orphanage and those foster families hadn’t always been good. Rivers had been in some of the worst, according to Matt, and had always come back to the orphanage with haunted eyes and hollowed-out cheeks.
Eventually he’d started setting fires to guarantee that he didn’t have to stay at those homes very long.
“What did they do to him?” I whispered, horrified.
Matt gave me a long, searching look that said he wasn’t going to tell me, even if he knew. “Those aren’t the sorts of things we talked about,” he said quietly. “It didn’t happen to all the boys. Some of us had easier paths. I never got into a foster family that did that, and when I was ten I was adopted by a family that loved me and treated me right. Rivers, Noah, and Hudson, though...”
“They didn’t have an easy path,” I guessed. “And they...”
He cast a look at Noah, who was standing against the wall and scowling like someone had just insulted him. “They’re carrying a lot of that with them still.”
Right.
I guessed you probably would.
I tried to understand what he was saying—starting with the idea of your mother actually turning you over to strangers—but it didn’t make sense to me. It was like he was speaking Greek. My parents had been so loving, so supportive of everything we did. They’d made sure I had whatever I wanted—within reason—and that I was always safe and well-fed. I’d never doubted that they loved me or wanted the best for me.
I couldn’t fathom not having that.
